What is a qubit, explained without any of the physics jargon?

[CaptainCipher10]

Genuinely trying to understand this at a basic level, what actually is a qubit and how is it different from a normal computer bit?

[Owen73]

A normal bit is like a light switch, it's either on or off, 1 or 0, nothing in between. A qubit is more like a dimmer switch that's spinning, it can be a mix of both at once until you actually check it, at which point it settles into one state or the other

That in-between state is called superposition, and it's what lets a quantum computer explore many possible answers to a problem simultaneously instead of checking them one at a time the way a classical computer has to

Qubits can also be linked together in a way classical bits can't, called entanglement, where measuring one instantly tells you something about another, even if they're physically far apart. Combining superposition and entanglement across many qubits is what gives quantum computers their theoretical edge on very specific kinds of problems, though building and controlling them reliably is still genuinely difficult engineering

[Tel86]

The dimmer switch that's spinning until you look at it is such a good way to put it, most explanations jump straight to jargon and lose people immediately